Earlier this week, President Obama declared, in his oval office address to the nation, that the US combat operations in Iraq were officially over. This is obviously an effort from the President to convince Americans, right before the November elections, that he has fulfilled one of his key 2008 campaign promises: To end the Iraq war and bring US troops home.

However, one can not help seeing the hypocrisy coming from a man who built his rise and  political success over his opposition to the Iraq war. The war in Iraq is not over, but instead has being re-branded by the Obama administration. It is just a smaller war, which is ironically probably more what Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had in mind for Iraq’s future. America’s foot print is still gigantic in Iraq, with 50,000 US troops, countless bases and an “embassy” bigger than the Vatican.

Some people, within the American left, were under the illusion that President Obama would and could think outside the box, and bring a peaceful revolution to Washington by breaking from the logic of permanent wars. Instead, President Obama has become a willing victim of a system where no one can truly question the deadly logic of the empire. American Presidents always describe themselves as “leaders of the free world”, but what they are, since World War II, are merely CEO of America Empire Inc. The real job of the Commander in Chief is to manage the empire, and in the case of President Obama it is to manage an empire in decline.

Unfortunately, almost nobody within the American establishment and political class  can put the logic of endless wars in question. Washington has become a modern version of Kafka’s “The Castle” where preserving the “system”, with the Pentagon at the top of the pyramid, is the only corner stone. However, some voices are coming out from people who used to operate within this establishment.

One of those voices is the one of  Andrew Bacevich. Bacevich is a retired US Army Colonel, and is currently a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. In his new book, “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War”, Bacevich  puts under a harsh spotlight and denounces America’s misguided military and foreign policies since World War II.

Yesterday, in an interview with Market Place’s Kai Ryssdal, concerning the Iraq war cost, Bacevich when asked by Ryssdal if there is a way to know how much the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost the United States said:

“I think we will never know. And we will never know, because the people in Washington don’t want us to know. If indeed, we could tally up the actual dollar cost, I think they would end up being so large that there would be a great hew-and-cry from the people. That will be one number that I think will tend to be very elusive.”

And further in the interview.

“The unwillingness to demand anything like strict accountability has become a deeply ingrained habit in Washington DC, and it is a habit that neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to challenge,” said Bacevich.

In his courageous and remarkable book, Andrew Bacevich takes apart the symbiotic and dysfunctional relationship between Washington DC, Wall Street and the Pentagon. The book contests conventional wisdom in its most influential and enduring form.

“Namely the package of assumptions, habits and precepts that have defined the tradition of statecraft, to which the United States has adhered since the end of World War II- the era of dominance now drawing to a close. By the midpoint of the 20TH century, the Pentagon had become Leviathan, its actions veiled in secrecy, its reach extending around the world. Yet while the concentration of power in Wall Street had once evoked deep fear and suspicions, Americans by and large saw the concentration of power in the Pentagon as benign. Most found it reassuring,” wrote Bacevich in his book.

To read excerpts from Andrew Bacevich’s book click here.

By Anthony Zeitouni

Recently, I read a short piece of news in Arabic that the Emir of Qatar has officially approved the establishment of the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue (DICID) as a “private institution for public benefit”, known in America as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC). This pushed me to ask: can interfaith dialogue be fruitful in the troubled Middle East? What could this center add to the landscape? Does the region need interfaith dialogue or religious reform? Can DICID become a public forum of interfaith dialogue?

Western societies make interfaith dialogue a lively and continuous public debate. For example, the Interfaith Center at the Presidio in San Francisco, California, USA initiated a young adult multi-religious group. Peace and justice support networks of the Mennonite church have their own programs. What is still missing in the Middle East is that interfaith dialogue is broken up and scattered.  Meanwhile, behind closed doors, high level religious leaders discuss while people on the streets suffer from the extremist views of lower-level preachers.

By his decree, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, outlines the mission and the goals of DICID, which is to “support and promote the culture of interfaith dialogue, and peaceful coexistence between the followers of religions, activating religious values to address issues and problems of concern to Humanity”.

Can DICID address the current crucial challenges in the Middle East such as the raise of radical Islam and fundamentalism, intolerance towards Arab Christians and the discrimination against Jews including Arabs of the Jewish faith?

How can the culture of interfaith dialogue in Middle East be supported and promoted?  This could be accomplished by first reversing the widespread culture of hate and nullification among religions, and second, by building strong and viable foundations of interfaith dialogue. Practically, by organizing numerous Interfaith events such as conferences, visits, mutual prayers, camps, youth dialogues, student activities….etc. This will lead to a culture of peace, not just among the Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but eastern and indigenous religions as well.

To support and promote a peaceful coexistence between the believers of various religions in the Middle East means facing the challenges of radical Islam and fundamentalism that is currently promoted and practiced by many groups in Arab countries. The main foundation of peaceful coexistence is tolerance. Real tolerance is what is missing, especially in Middle East. By its activities DICID should contribute in creating a peaceful coexistence through tolerance as a spiritual virtue.

Activating religious values to address issues and problems of concern to humanity is one of the most important challenges of our era. The issues that face humankind are endless: Hunger, wars, diseases, and do not end with the terror that affects everyone on the planet. DICID must support people in developing a deeper understanding of world problems. DICID must discuss ways to put religion in service to humanity. For example, the Mennonite Disaster Service provides both immediate and long-term responses to hurricanes, floods. Also Bread for the World is a direct faithful response to the hunger. People must explore and activate their religious values to more enthusiastically and efficiently contribute to solve Human problems.

Sometimes interfaith dialogue tends to be an ideological discussion between clerics and other religious elite.  It consequently fails to be a practical activity that leads to concrete results from which the public can benefit. For example an extra-curricular activity about Jerusalem can allow the students to benefit from the role of three Abrahamic religions in the holy city of Jerusalem. Only public interfaith dialogue can reveal the mutual values between religions such as compassion, love, justice, respect and mutual understanding.

Additionally, DICID should deal with two crucial challenges: the confusing of the Jewish religion with the state of Israel and the discrimination against the Arab Christians, which has deteriorated recently due to the influence of Islamic fundamentalists. Qatar is uniquely positioned to deal with these two challenges, first because it has a clear-talk with Israel, and second because it fostered decent relations with Arab Christians, in particular by creating a climate of respect toward the hundred thousand Christians living in Qatar by allowing them to practice their faith in a church near Doha.  This church is the first ever built after Islam’s arrival in the 7th century. That eases a strained relationship and creates a platform of understanding and respect between the Muslims of Qatar and the Christian minority.

The Middle East, an enormous area where religion plays an essential role in the daily life, is eager for committed workers with the mission of filling the gap in understanding among different religious believers.

Editor’s Note: Anthony Zeitouni (anthonygaz@gmail.com ) is a Washington-based analyst, working in conflict resolution. He focuses on reform, good governance, human rights, minorities and interfaith dialogue in the Middle East. Zeitouni has published in Search for Common Ground and with Middle East Times. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon. His web site is www.anthonyzeitouni.com

Today, President Obama will address the nation from the oval office, and will praise the sacrifice made by the US military in Iraq. The President will also claim that the “US combat operations in Iraq are over”. However, this upcoming statement is part truth part political spin for US domestic consumption.

The reality of Iraq and the US presence there is quite different. 50,000 US troops will still be stationed in Iraq for so called training purposes, as well as more than 100,000 “contractors” which are hired guns for either the State Department or private US or international corporations. The 50,000 remaining troops are supposed to leave next year, but the Obama administration has already indicated that they could stay longer at the request of the Iraqi government.

The American people would be extremely naive to believe that US troops and “contractors” (mercenaries) will completely leave Iraq and Afghanistan any time soon. It is actually more murky than just wars over resources such as oil in Iraq and lithium in Afghanistan, it is also about the US strategy of having substantial military assets on both sides of Iran’s borders.

The very same imperialist logic was used, and still is, to keep US troops in Germany and Japan after World War II. In Germany, it was obviously in the context of the Cold War with the USSR. In Japan today, it has to do with counter-balancing the growing military power of China.

Despite all the claims of progress made in Iraq, the country is still broken.  Almost half year after the elections, Iraq still does not have a new government. Today, Vice President Biden was in Baghdad to officially mark the occasion. But a few hours before his arrival, mortars landed on the fortified and American controlled Green Zone.

The Obama administration can spin the reality of Iraq however they want, but it does not mean that the war is over for Iraqis. Bomb attacks are still a constant threat, more than 3 million Iraqis are refugees in either Jordan, Syria or Europe, and the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites has not being resolved. The US invasion has not made Iraq into a functioning democracy at all, and for the moment the country is not even stable. A full blown sectarian civil war between the three communities could restart at any moment.

It is hard to reduce the tragic mistake that was the Iraq war to numbers, but this is where we stand so far according to a very conservative and somewhat rosy estimate from the military newspaper Stars & Stripes:  4,414 US troops killed; 31,897 US troops wounded in action; 1,135 US troops amputees; 113, 166 Iraqi civilian deaths; $747.6 Billion for war’s operating cost or $2,435 per US citizen; the estimate of the total cost of the Iraq war stands at $3 Trillion, plus an additional 500 million for the cost of medical care and disability compensation for veterans.

Let’s not kid ourselves, if the US military is still in Germany and Japan 65 years after the end of World War II they are more than likely to be in Iraq and Afghanistan for decades to come, unless we have some real change of policies in Washington.

As for the actual 2010 Emmy Awards, there were a few surprises in a year filled with tough competition and a slew of deserving contenders. I know “Lost” fans were expecting a parting prize for the mystical drama, but alas “Mad Men,” that little period drama which happens to serve up the best writing and ensemble acting-since the “Sopranos”  ” or “The West Wing” just could not be denied its third consecutive Best Drama Award. I’m not sure if the show’s clever creator Mathew Weiner planned it, but last night’s episode featured the drama’s slick complicated ad man, Don Draper headed to the  Clio Awards where he was up  for the best  floor polish ad. While Don won, Jon Hamm the actor who plays the matinee idol handsome rogue anti-hero walked away without a statue, losing for the third straight year to Bryan Cranston, who turns out a consistently edgy performance as a teacher turned drug dealer on “Breaking Bad,” another drama on AMC, a cable network that–with varying success–continues to  push storytelling beyond the safe and expected boundaries.

Coming off the buzz of the first superb season, I figured Julianna Marguiles would surely walk off with the Best Actress in a Drama Emmy for her brilliantly nuanced role on “The Good Wife, .” The statue instead went home with Kyra Sedgwick who after sitting with the plastered on also -ran smile four years running, finally got the win on her fifth try for the TNT’s popular police procedural, “The Closer.” I can’t argue with the choice. Sedgwick offers a witty turn as a personally hapless, professionally sharp Los Angeles detective and she’s surrounded by a winning cadre of supporting players. But besides being swept up in something resembling a cultural zeitgeist  ”The Good Wife” is a better show. It follows the post-political trauma travails of a woman publicly humiliated by her politician husband’s exploits with the scripted finesse and emotionally charged acting that garnered it a Best Drama nomination. The show did pick up a surprise win as newcomer Archie Panjabi won Best Supporting Actress in A Drama beating out fellow cast mate veteran Christine Baranski, Sharon Gless and ”Mad Men’s” Elizabeth Moss and Christiana Hendricks.

The comic kudos were spread around, too, with ABC’s break-out sit-com “Modern Family” beating Fox’s smash “Glee” for Best Comedy. Edie Falco was the surprise nominee and winner in the Best Comedy Actress category for Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie.” The Big Bang Theory’s” Jim Parsons won Best Actor and “Modern Family’s” Eric Stonestreet grabbed the Best Supporting Actor honors. I feared the same sympathy/ protest vote that fetched him a nomination, may have bestowed a dubious Best Comedy/Variety honor on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien,” but I was relieved when Jon Stewart and the crazy-genius brigade over on “The Daily Show” snagged their sixth Emmy.

HBO continues to dominate in the Movie and Mini-Series categories. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that a substantial swath of quality entertainment would be squashed if not for the cable juggernaut. The 15 part series “The Pacific” won a batch of awards, including Best Mini-Series. “Temple Grandin,” the captivating bio-pic about the pioneering scientist who battled autism and society’s low expectations to earn a PhD, revolutionize farm systems and become an outspoken expert/advocate for the autistic, picked up Best Movie, Best Director ( Mick Jackson), Best Actress ( Clare Danes) and Best Supporting Actress (Julia Ormand). Grandin herself was at the ceremony, standing up and collecting applause as each Award was announced. The most touching moment came as she took to the stage with the cast and producers, hugging a producer and lauding her elderly mother, also in the audience. ”I know you’re shy, but stand up, Mother,” she said.

The film, now available on DVD, is a must see. Jackson works his way through the tricky terrain of Grandin’s special mind through sensitive treatment and stunning cinematic techniques including quick cuts, graphics, dreamy fantasy flashes and heightened sound effects, all designed to give us a real sense of what it’s like to live in the mysterious grip of autism. Danes–completely transformed–captures Grandin’s awkward gestures, gawky posture, excitable speech, erratic emotional dips. She doesn’t offer a mere impersonation, but rather becomes Grandin here, infusing the portrayal with deep sensitivity, a being that feels authentic. Ormand is grand and determined as Grandin’s steadfast mother, undeterred in her efforts to help her daughter combat and overcome the obstacles of a disorder that back in the 1950′s was far less understood than it is today.

Since autism has become so widely diagnosed and talked about in recent years, this film will surely appeal to parents and educators coping with the disorder. But its quality warrants viewing by anyone interested in incisive character studies and superb acting.

HBO’s other big winner, “You Don’t Know Jack,” Barry Levinson’s inventive film homage to the maverick right-to-die advocate Jack Kevorkian fetched honors for Adam Mazer’s brisk script and Al Pacino’s tour de force portrayal. It’s also now out on DVD. For more read my NJP review:

George Clooney was awarded the fourth Bob Hope Humanitarian Award and offered a humble and succinct speech, imploring people to find ways to shine the spotlight on important causes and events long after the immediate impact and reporting zeal has past. Such a plea resonates in an era that increasingly celebrates bad behavior.

The 2010 Emmy Awards showed us there is, in fact, a quantity of quality programming on television. You just have to know where to look for it.

Check out the complete list of Emmy winners here.

Please follow Amy Beth Arkawy on Twitter.

I despair when I hear people talk about climate change in terms of failing ski resorts and longer growing seasons. The disconnect between the common perception of what climate change really is and what people think it means is truly terrifying.

One of the unfortunate things about Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” is it led to the notion that the principle threat posed by climate change is coastal flooding. One could watch the film and conclude that if you didn’t live near a coast climate change is problem that need not concern you directly – NOT!

About a year ago articles like “Billions could go hungry from global warming by 2100 started appearing and this seemed to surprise a lot of people.    Reality check. Far and away the most serious threat posed by climate change is famine; truly massive, global famine.

This seems counter-intuitive as another unfortunate climate change myth is that it will be good for plants. More warmth and higher CO2 levels sure sounds like it should. The threat to crops is is in various ways and not all regions are threatened. In fact under conditions of moderate climate change a few regions of the world will actually benefit in the short to medium term. (Note “short to medium term” = decades, not centuries)

However they are the exception. For the majority the effects will range from negative to devastating. Indeed Australia, northeast Africa, and the western United States are already visibly suffering the consequences.

Climate change affects crops in different ways because they are complex systems. Yes there is more CO2 and it will get warmer, but “warmer” leads to quite a few different consequences depending on other factors. I would like to offer a quick survey to help people appreciate what we are facing.

Let’s start with rising seas. A two meter rise in sea level may not seem like much if you are thinking of the cliffs of Dover, but for low lying places like Bangladesh and Florida it is huge. Some of the worlds best agricultural land is in river deltas like the Nile and the Mekong which are very close to sea level.

The greater threat from rising sea levels is not actual flooding, but infiltration of ground water by sea water. Once the ground water becomes saline the salt migrates up through the soil and turns productive land into a salt desert.

A two meter rise in sea level can affect agricultural land quite some distance from the ocean. A majority of the world’s food production is within 5 m of sea level.

Warmer weather means different weather, and that means changes in rainfall. There are a great many variables involved in creating weather, but some broad patterns are known.

Warmer air can hold more moisture, which will mean more rainfall in some regions when the air masses bring in more moisture. In other regions it will mean greater drought as the warmer air sucks up more moisture. It depends on how saturated with moisture the air is, and on whether the system is warming or cooling. Systems that are cooling will tend to drop rain. Systems that are warming will tend to suck up moisture.

Weather systems coming off of the ocean will tend to be wet. Systems coming from mountains will tend to be drying as the air descends and warms. The same will tend to be true for systems moving from north to south (ie they will be warming).

In crude terms we expect dry areas to get drier, and wet areas to get wetter. Neither is good news.

Most grain growing regions in the world are really pretty dry, including the Canadian prairies, the American West, the Ukraine and northern China. Marginal lands will become desert and good land degraded. Already areas of Oklahoma and Texas are experiencing drought comparable to what they experienced in the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Yes the IPCC stated that for North America “In the early decades of the century, moderate climate change is projected to increase aggregate yields …”, but the rest of that quote is “… of rain-fed agriculture by 5 to 20%, but with important variability among regions. “

In other words food production that depends on irrigation and/or is already in a water stressed region will not benefit; in these regions food production will decline.

So what areas of North America have been experiencing more drought in the past decade or so? The West of course (Canada and USA), California, the South East, and Florida;  ie almost everywhere that grows the majority of North American food.

But more rain is not a good thing either as flooding will kill a crop as effectively as drought, as happened in the American mid-west and is happening in Pakistan.

Even without floods more water can be a problem as low lying areas become flooded or marshy, and poorer draining soils become waterlogged, all of which damages crops or removes land from production entirely.

Any farmer can tell you that it’s not just how much rain they get, it’s when it comes. For regions that experience changes in rainfall it is critical how and when the rain comes.

It seems likely that the increases we expect will not be spread out, but rather come as stronger, more intense storms. These will damage crops directly without necessarily benefiting them as the water simply runs off. Increased runoff will cause more soil erosion and flood waterways.

Even if the total rainfall is “just right”, it won’t matter if it doesn’t come at the right times. Drenching storms followed long dry periods are of no particular benefit.

Lack of rain during planting will not be fixed by heavy rain later. Too much rain during harvest season can destroy a crop completely. Wetter will also mean increased mold, rot, and other diseases for many crops.

Warmer weather also means more intense heat waves, and more of them. Heat waves stress crops and reduce productivity at the best of times. If there is an intense heat wave during germination, flower set, or fruit set it can wipe the crop out completely.

The worlds glaciers are in catastrophic decline and this is disaster for agriculture in many parts of the world. Historically in winter the glaciers act as a storehouse for accumulated snow which then melts in high summer.

Source: World Glacier Monitoring Service

Many regions of the world depend on glacier fed rivers for irrigation during the driest part of the summer. This is true of the Canadian prairies, large areas of the American West, temperate South America, and much of central Asia. At current rates of decline glaciers will cease to be a meaningful source of water sometime in the next 30 to 40 years.

Climate change not only threatens crops, but fisheries as well. The increased acidification of ocean caused by CO2 absorption impacts marine life in many ways, and for the most part not good. As things currently stand we anticipate almost all fisheries to be wiped out within decades under the dual pressure of climate change and over fishing.

Regardless of the morality of it, the fact is that at least some of the worlds cropland is dedicated to biofuels and that will probably increase as the price of oil increases. Farmers will sell where they get the best price, and if the wealthy are willing to pay more to continue to indulge their luxuries, then the poor will be without food just as they are now.

The Global Outlook

Large areas of the worlds most productive regions are expected to suffer reduced yields from climate change. Indeed for most years in the past decade the world has consumed more grain than it produced and world grain reserves are now near record lows.

Many countries already ban or limit food exports and that is going to increase. At the same time many western countries are encouraging the production of biofuels for economic reasons, but that is taking the land out of food production.

Crops and Fisheries at Risk

Looking at the above map ask yourself “In 30 years where will my food come from? and how much will it cost?”

Needless to say this is still a very simplistic overview of a complex issue. Many posts could be written on the physiology of plant responses to heat stress, or pests and diseases on crops, never mind the uncertainties of predicting regional climate.

Even so I hope it has helped to banish the notion that climate change will have some positive benefits, at least if you agree that famine and accompanying civic collapse tends to over-shadow things like “more beach days.”

There is a certain irony that diet, which is the largest portion of our carbon footprint for most of us, is also the part of our life that is most threatened by climate change. There are numerous simplistic suggestions for dealing with the coming food crisis, but many of them are as flawed as the “more CO2 means more food” fable is.

Of the coming food crisis New Scientist said “…3 billion people will have to choose between going hungry and moving…” Uhm, move to where? Where exactly do we currently have the room for 3 billion people?

A far more likely scenario is that presented by the series “Climate Wars”  (Ideas1 Ideas2 Ideas3) and highly recommended.

“The question of bread for myself is a material question, but the question of bread for my neighbor is a spiritual question.”

Nikolai Bordyaev

Image Credits:

Flight from famine…. by tezzer57

Desertificazione, desertification, desertifikation by pizzodisevo (sorry, the left hand hurts)

Happy Halloween From Sunny New Jersey! by Sister72

Drought by Mundoo

Drought Along Po River by brtsergio

Custom House Famine Memorial by infomatique

The general consensus seems to be that Beck’s rally was little more than another of his attempts at race-baiting and an affront to the civil rights movement, as in fact it was.  It was primarily deemed a self-aggrandizing religious revival and motivational speech, which it also was.  But, what seems to have been missed was the redefinition of the civil rights movement to suit a very specific, very political, and very conservative agenda.

To accept the ruse that Glenn Beck’s rally was religious, rather than political, is to miss the message Beck was sending entirely, as well as the basis of his ‘100 year plan.’  His theme of Faith, Hope, and Charity, was nothing more than a redressed version of his oft-repeated call for the drastic weakening of government and the elimination of all public funded, and public managed, social programs. He cloaked his politics in religion and seemed to fool everyone.

Faith, Hope and Charity is his innocuous sounding recipe for extreme Libertarianism disguised as a revival of the church, rather than as a deconstruction of responsible government.  Beck insists on a smaller, impotent government, and rails against what he calls a nanny state with entitlement programs.  Faith should be in God, not government.  He states that any such services or supports should be offered through churches or synagogues, or by individuals exercising their religious duty of alms-giving.  This is the only acceptable form of charity.

Conservatives have often proposed that churches should provide social services, rather than the public provide their own services through their government.  While this provides them with a convenient argument for the lowering of taxes, it also results in immediate, and drastic, social inequality.  Church based, or faith based, services unregulated and unfunded by anything other than religious doctrine and their congregation of adherents, create an immediate and meaningful dominance by the majority over any and all minorities.  Whichever church has the most attendees has the most money.  Whichever church has the most money is able to provide the services required by the community.  Whichever Church controls access to necessary services has power over everyone in the community.

Regardless of one’s religion, spiritual belief, or world view, they would be required to adhere to whatever criteria are dictated by the religious institution that dominates their community.  For the majority of Americans this would be either the Catholic church or Fundamentalist Evangelical churches.  Family planning, contraception, and abortion, would all be impossible within this proposed system.  Religious doctrine would dictate social policy, individual rights, and individual freedoms, and an individual’s exercising of their freedom of religion would now come at the cost of access to these necessary supports and services.

In a poor, and tasteless, imitation of her Uncle’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech,  Alveda King made it clear that homosexuality, and women’s reproductive rights, are not acceptable in the America being envisioned, and promoted, through this political/religious revival.  By removing the funding for the social services that the public provides for themselves through their government, and allowing churches to govern and control those services, the religious right will achieve the agenda they’ve been unable to impose legally and democratically.  Abortion would no longer be available, and homosexuals would be completely disenfranchised.

Beck’s nod to pluralism is as disingenuous and contradictory as his nod to diversity.  There were more people of color on his stage of performers than there were in his crowd of approximately 96,000.  His radio and television shows speak as clearly of Christian preference as they do about charges of racism against President Obama, and reverse racism against the oppressed white citizens of America.  In Pastor Hagee’s closing prayer at Beck’s pre-rally event held at the Kennedy center on Friday night, it was made clear that America’s acceptance of pluralism was a terrible mistake that must be corrected.  The diverse clergy that Beck paraded onto his stage represented nothing more than a tool to wrestle power from the people and their government.  Once that power is removed from the people and their government, Christian preference, as well as white preference, would be established by the majority control of community resources.

Glenn Beck stated that his goal was to reclaim the civil rights movement.  His actual goal is to redefine it, and reverse it.  The conservative strategy is to change it from a movement that encouraged a robust and responsible government, acting on behalf of the people and ensuring the rights guaranteed in the Constitution, to a movement calling for the drastic downsizing of that very same government.  Rather than being the force to battle against state rights and inequality, it would be a hapless pawn in dismantling the very government that empowered it when the majority of Americans were against it.  Beck’s plan will put the power back in the hands of the majority that fought against the civil rights movement.

The Black Robe Brigade that Beck introduced is his political action committee for implementing this strategy.  Like the original Black Robe Brigades of the eighteenth century, it’s role will be to agitate against government and mobilize it’s congregants in service of a political agenda.  Unlike it’s name-sake, this new version will be charged with supporting a very specific, and very conservative, agenda.

Only Glenn Beck can turn Faith, Hope and Charity into an insidious plot to usurp the government of the United States.  By removing the power that the people have over their own government, and eroding the strength and effectiveness of that government, and replacing it with the church, the Constitutional rights and protections of American citizens would be devastated.  To clearly understand this, his constant insistence on lower taxes must be juxtaposed with his public call for all Americans to give ten percent of their wages to their Church, or religious organization, as he did during his rally.  The only thing that this would result in is a small and ineffectual representative government, and a powerful, well funded, authoritarian church of the majority.

To underestimate Glenn Beck and the very aggressive movement that he represents would be a foolhardy mistake.  He is a talented and charismatic communicator that wields a great deal of influence, and control, over a very large, very reactive, and very easily led audience.  What he lacks in scruples, he more than makes up for in ability.  He knows his audience well.  He plays every wedge issue to his advantage and the promotion of his agenda.

As much as it pains any person with a modicum of independent, critical thinking skills to acknowledge it; Glenn Beck’s ‘Restoring Honor’ rally was a masterful exercise in political organizing.  He promised a recipe for fundamental change to this country and he delivered.  He delivered it right on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and no one even noticed.  He presented a clear strategy for the undermining of the Constitutional foundation of this country and all anyone saw was a religious service.

If the rest of this country doesn’t wake up, and soon, to the agenda being pursued by the far right, the Christian Reconstructionists, and the anti-government conservatives, they’re going to wake up one morning in a very different America.  Progressives, Liberals, Democrats, Independents, and Centrist Republicans cannot afford to abdicate their responsibility as voters.

Don’t be fooled by the emotional melodrama and rodeo-clown antics of Glenn Beck.  He’s a political force as well as a controversial agent of divisiveness.  He may seem like a jester that many find difficult to take seriously, but he’s proven himself a master politician as well as a master baiter.

Up to 20,000 people are expected to attend the Know Your Rights Expo, across the street from Disneyland Resort, at the city-owned Anaheim Convention Center, reports Eric Carpenter at The Orange County Register.

Legal experts will be discussing the status of California’s medical marijuana laws, and Proposition 19, a November ballot measure that would legalize, regulate and tax the sale of marijuana if approved by voters.

Anaheim has found itself squarely in the middle of California’s debate over medical marijuana. The city council passed a law which bans all medical marijuana dispensaries, which is being challenged in court by patients who believe the law violates Prop 215, the 1996 voter initiative that made California the first state in the union to legalize medical pot.

Advocates had been looking to the case to provide a clear precedent for other California cities, but an appeals court judge earlier this month sent the case back to trial court instead.

Expo organizers said the venue for Saturday’s event is mostly coincidental, and that Anaheim just seemed like a good central location.

“And with the court case and Prop 19 coming up, it seemed like the right time for a big expo,” said Kandice Hawes, president of Orange County NORML, the nonprofit legalization advocacy group sponsoring the event along with the Santa Ana-based law firm Glew & Kim.

Retired Orange County Superior Court Judge Jim Gray, an advocate for marijuana legalization, will speak at the expo.

Featured speakers at the expo will be retired Orange County Superior Court Judge Jim Gray, an advocate for Prop 19, and Duane Robert, a Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate.

The event will be hosted by “Radical” Russ Belville of The NORML Stash Blog.

Hundreds of vendors will be on hand to sell hemp-related products, according to expo organizers.

The expo, only open to adults 18 or older, will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, August 28, at the Convention Center, 800 W. Katella Avenue, Anaheim.

Tickets are $15 for those 18 to 54. Seniors 55 and older can get in for $10.

For information and tickets, visit knowyourrightsexpo.com.

Steve Elliott, a working journalist since 1982, edits Toke of the Town, Village Voice Media’s site of cannabis news, views, rumor and humor.

After reviewing several legal complaints filled by Roma associations and human rights groups, the UN’s anti-racism and discrimination Committee  will  send a letter to put pressure on the European Union to urgently address the situation of the Roma and the Travelers  in the context of France’s controversial collective deportation of Roma conducted by the Sarkozy administration.

The UN Committee stressed that any collective repatriation is not acceptable under the UN Human Rights Charter. The Committee judged that the Roma are currently “subject to a rise in racist violence”, and that such actions are taken seriously when there are worrying signs of “widespread racial discrimination”.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has 18 members and is part of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In France on Thursday, the mass deportation continued. An additional 283 Roma were expelled from France, bringing this year’s total to 8,313. According to official figures from the French Minister of Immigration, 7,875 Roma were thrown out of the country last year.

The UN Human Rights Committee said it was extremely worried by “political speeches of a discriminatory nature”, which come amid a rise of racism and xenophobia in France and across the EU. To echo this point, on Thursday, during his visit to Paris, Romanian Minister Valentin Mocanu warned France against “a drift towards racism and xenophobia”.

Sarkozy, who shows record low approval rating in the polls, is eager to distract from a growing financial scandal by using his  “law & order” policy-which includes the mass deportation of Roma- to cater to the French far-right. Just like in the United States the anti-immigrant agenda is popular in France, and Sarkozy thinks he can get some votes by fishing in the murky racist waters of the French electorate. The left, in France, are comparing the policy of Sarkozy towards the Roma to the one of fascist pro-German Petain during World War II.

Five years after Katrina, the Gulf Coast and New-Orleans have to deal with another large scale disaster ( in this case purely man-made) in the form of the BP oil spill. It seems that New-Orleans can not get a break, but again the Crescent City is far from being the only town at the epicenter of our current looming ecological and social disaster.

Most people, in the press, have failed to establish a link, which should be rather obvious, between climate change and global warming and the recent deadly fires in Russia and the current unthinkable human tragedy unfolding for Pakistanis under flood water.

The fires in Russia were triggered by the highest temperatures on record, and the torrential monsoon rains in Pakistan have caused the wrath of the Indus river. In both cases, we are dealing with “extreme weather”, which scientists view as a consequence of global warming. In other words global warming causes climate change which in return produces  extreme weather phenomenons such as hurricanes, floods, droughts etc.

But back circa 2005 in New-Orleans, Katrina exposed more than just a poorly managed city and state, a completely inefficient and careless federal government, but mainly the biggest fairy tale of global consciousness: America as a model for democracy, a “shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere”, a system all countries should look up to and copy. Katrina gave America a bad PR worldwide, giving outsiders a glimpse of the real America: The one of racial divide- despite the civil rights’ gains of the 60′s- and even more importantly the one of class divide. The America of shock or “jungle capitalism”.

Class is a dirty word in American politics, because of its Marxist connotation. It is, however the right one to use. In New-Orleans five years ago, people who could afford air line tickets or the ones who had cars could get out, the poor were  left behind fending for themselves against the storm first then trapped in a ghost town with broken infrastructures, trigger happy cops, vigilantes, mercenaries from Blackwater and the National Guard.

Katrina played a big part in the undoing of the Bush administration, yet the “lessons” from Katrina have not been learned by either the Democrats or the Republicans. Some people from the left categorized the BP oil spill as “Obama’s Katrina”, and indeed it is, but unfortunately it is not the only one for President Obama. There is of course Afghanistan or “Obama’s Vietnam” and, what I view as his biggest domestic policy mistake; the bailout of Wall Street with more or less no questions asked.

As far as New-Orleans, the short comings  of the Obama administration are plenty. Five years after the devastation of hurricane Katrina, New-Orleans’ Lower 9TH Ward- the area hit hardest by the flooding and in large majority poor and African-Americans- is still desolated. With no our very little infrastructure and a very few businesses, less than 25 percent of people have returned to the Lower 9TH. For the very few (see photo above) who had the knowledge and some resources to rebuild, daily life is a constant struggle.

The light coming out of America as a “shining city upon a hill” has become dim. Don’t get me wrong, for the super-rich ( or about 2 percent of the population controlling more than half of the wealth) the “American Dream” is still alive and well, but for 98 percent of us, it has been exposed as a farce, an elaborate Ponzi scheme cooked up by the “masters of the universe” of  Wall Street.

Further, in the fetid waters of New-Orleans post Katrina, the US saw a very disturbing reflection of itself. None of the uncomfortable questions raised by Katrina were answered: How was it that an America able to send hundreds of thousands of troops halfway around the world to topple Saddam Hussein could not protect New-Orleans? How could such a Third World disaster happen within the borders of the leader of the First World? Why did African-Americans suffer the most?

A record numbers of American are homeless or in the process of loosing their houses to banks going for a full on land grab. Almost 50 millions of Americans rely on food stamps to eat, many states are on the verge of insolvency. California, one of the biggest and supposedly one of  “richest states” of the nation will likely have to issue IOU (again) in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, we have no problem spending the bulk of our financial resources in repressive entities such as the police, the prison system and of course the military instead of allocating a proper level of  funds to education, health care, and social services. The hit of Katrina on New-Orleans was a wake-up call, the financial crash of 2008 was the second big punch, yet it is as if we still don’t understand that America’s current system is past due for a drastic revamping. The real lesson from Katrina, and from the 2008 financial collapse, is how cruelly America treats  its citizens who have nothing.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Gilbert Mercier, you can view some more here.